Word: pyramus
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...dialogues, however, especially the rustics', are splendid. In the end, after all the trials and tribulations of True Romance, there is a grand reconciliation when the status quo is restored. Good-humor and realism prevail over magic. At this point, the rustic laborers' comic rendition of the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe is not only a parody of human lovers' seriousness, but also of 19th century opera...
...cameras, flashlights, modern tunes, and anachronistic props, however funny, cannot take the show away from its brilliant and dedicated cast. Dean Gitter's fascinating Bottom remains the most difficult performance to fathom: his "wit" in the scenes with Titania almost passes for just that, and his death scene as Pyramus reveals Bottom, unbelievably, a capable actor--capable at least of temporarily affecting Theseus and Hippolyta, played superbly by Tommy Lee Jones and Lynette Saxe...
...notion then goes from Ritchard's Bottom to his head. "I get to play Bottom and Pyramus," thinks Richard, "but why should I stop at two roles?" So he announces, "Let me play Oberon too--or methinks I won't play at all." Believing that a loaf and a half is better than none, the powers-that-be agree to pencil him in as king of the fairies...
...rest of the "mechanicals," only Tom Aldridge's Quince emerges as a fully formed character. And when he delivers the prologue before the Pyramus playet, he has a grand time with the alliterative avalanche of b's. The other cronies are passable. The whole sextet of artisans is just no match for their counterparts in the 1958 production: Morris Carnovsky, Hiram Sherman, Ellis Rabb, William Hickey, Will Geer, and Severn Darden...
...current crop, though, does manage to bring to the Pyramus interlude a good deal of humor, albeit of a highly slapstick sort. Pyramus' whacking of Wall (Robert Frink) on the chest elicits a cloud of plaster dust. And when Thisby (Mylo Quam) says, "Come, trusty sword," she repeats the line, whereupon the "dead" Pyramus hands her his own sword, with which she then proceeds to stab herself with studied phoniness under the armpit. (Ritchard has, in fact, introduced throughout the whole show a lot of business straight out of vaudeville and the music-hall...